


Reasons to Not Fall in Love

by nanami



Category: DCU (Comics), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Brief Mentions of Animal Abuse, Injury, M/M, Slow Burn, enemies to friends to ???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 04:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18203234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanami/pseuds/nanami
Summary: On an objective level, emotions are a weakness to be exploited. Damian has been trained to be nothing but a weapon, and weapons aren’t supposed tofeel. On an objective level, he knows this. On a deeper, more primal level that he didn’t think died so much as never existed in the first place, he has always been a broken blade from the day he was born.Is it any wonder that he’d slip up, in the end?





	Reasons to Not Fall in Love

**Author's Note:**

> This... was originally a 5+1 fic that absolutely got out of hand
> 
> Re: Injury (I wasn't sure how to specifically tag for it), there's a broken bone scene in part 4 so please feel free to skim over that if it bothers you! The other warning is for a small paragraph in part 6 marked in italics.
> 
> also I love them

_1\. Because he’s an enemy._

Their first meeting goes about as well as anyone could expect.

_Kidnapping_ is too harsh a word. Damian prefers _involuntary confinement_ , because a half-Kryptonian is too large a liability to go unchecked. He’s run some tests before they’re found, the alien writhing against his tethers the whole time, but Damian can only scoff at the readings on the machine. If he truly wanted to escape, there’s no doubt in Damian’s mind that he could have. Even without his muscle, even with his powers sapped by the dim lights of the Cave, surely, _surely_ he must be practiced well enough as Superman’s son to throw off his bindings?

(No, he learns. He isn’t. The boy is entirely untrained and, more than anything, _unrefined_. Superman is a poor teacher, and that’s being generous. Damian, who has been fighting a war from the day he was born, turns his nose up at the utter foolishness of the family Superman has chosen to make for himself. Family is something Damian only trusts as far as he can throw them, and he’s had worse and worse aim these days.)

His father sits him down later, telling him what a poor tactical decision he made. _Superman’s son is not a science experiment, Damian_ , he warns, and then, when Damian points out the hypocrisy in that statement, _No one is your science experiment, Damian_. He doesn’t know why Batman, the self-proclaimed great detective, would be willing to leave such a massive blind spot in his research.

He needs more data. The “science experiment” his father banned him from left much to be desired. Without a proper amount of time to monitor him, let alone test him against control cases, it’s difficult to ascertain the limits of the alien’s strength. Hadn’t his father taught him to have plans ready to keep both his greatest allies and his most contemptible foes in control? It’s only natural that Damian would follow in his footsteps, a shadow behind the investigator himself.

He may be kept from performing direct experiments, but there are still methods he can try. Whether his father wants him to or not, he needs information before he allows this hybrid to roam freely. So Damian puts up with it for now. There aren’t many easier ways to gather information, but there are far more subtle ones.

 

* * *

_2\. Because he annoys you._

The second time they meet, he’s instructed in no uncertain terms to _work with_ the alien hybrid. It’s an utterly absurd order that Damian is intent on defying—or he would, if their fathers hadn’t come up with the brilliant plan to dump them in the middle of nowhere as a test for how well they can work together. How in the world they can “work together” when the half-baked Superboy can’t even work with _himself_ is either another mystery for Robin to solve, or an underling for Damian al Ghul to train.

Damian knows what teamwork is, has had it forced into his head since his move to Gotham, but teamwork implies equals. Teamwork implies a give and take. And not only is Superboy half the man his father is—which, from Damian’s perspective, isn’t saying much at all—he’s also unpredictable and can’t control his powers.

Superboy is clumsy, barreling his way through every encounter. Whether he’s expecting his invulnerability to pull him through or for Damian to watch his back for him, Damian doesn’t know. Either way, it nearly makes him nauseous.

Damian is careful. He’s never known to be anything but careful. He’s never had the _opportunity_ to be as carefree as Superboy is; he had been raised to be used, a rusted blade for his mother to polish and shine. And he had done it, because it was expected of him. Following his mother’s orders had been easy, as simple as cutting down her enemies.

(Skin. Muscle. Sinew. Blood. Bone. There are warmer words with which to quantify human life, but Damian’s grasp on the language of pacifism has always been tenuous.)

And yet, in the end, they make it through the insult of a bootcamp. If their fathers thought it would bring them closer together, though, they’ll be sorely disappointed. Superboy, whom the world has smiled upon, looks at him with scorching indignation. Robin looks back at him with frigid bitterness.

There’s something still nagging at him in the recesses of his mind. A whisper in the quiet night. They had rested on Goliath’s back as Goliath flew them through the sky (of _course_ Superboy doesn’t know how to fly yet, of _course_ he wouldn’t be able to handle it if he did), and Superboy asked:

_Damian, do you think you want to grow up to be like your dad someday? You know. A good person._

The words echo in his mind. Damian knows that Superboy had no idea how true they ring. He hasn’t breathed a word about his past, and even if Father had told Superman, the boyscout is too honorable to tell anyone else. So it’s either…

It was either a lucky guess, or Superboy is truly that naïve. Naïve enough to think that everyone has a chance to be good, that people are born with love in their hearts. Naïve enough to stare down someone born in shrouds of darkness and feel _irritation_ instead of fear.

Naïve enough to see a tool ruined and broken and believe there’s something worth saving left in the shards.

_You talk too much._

A deflection. He didn’t know what else to say. Superboy doesn’t— _can’t_ know. Can’t know where Damian came from, because the truth is as devastating as the mountain of bodies he’d piled up in ten short years.

Superboy will never know the feeling of life draining from a wound as easy as water, of a flame snuffed out by his own two hands. The weight of a blade between his fingers, how simple it is to put his thumbs on choke points, how human life is composed of nothing but weak physical bindings. And in a way—

In a way, Damian is glad. There’s a certain ugliness to the world that Damian has experienced and lived. An ugliness that would break Superboy’s spirit to hell and back. Damian has lived the worst to atone for what he’d done, and even though Superboy is rough around the edges and needs more than simple formal training, there’s…

There’s something in him. A light, perhaps, that blinds Damian like frost scorched in the rays of morning. It’s not surprising, and maybe it’s a little bit cliché with a half-Kryptonian hybrid, but Damian has no other words to describe it in any of the many languages he knows. He’s a searing ray of pure sun itself: without borders, without limits, and without training, he’s liable to burn himself up. It’s almost admirable that there’s something in him that refuses to be dimmed. At the same time, it’s so utterly, utterly frustrating that Damian is forced to contend with the most annoying and novice “force for justice” he’s ever met. Damian resents that innocence, but.

But he knows that there are some aspects of the vigilante life that require more than a good word and faith. That there are some parts that would take that light away. And if either one of them has to have blood on their hands to make it work, then—Damian would rather it be him.

He was never going to be pure, after all. That chance had been stolen from him before his first breath.

 

* * *

_3\. Because he’s untrained._

Robin becomes Superboy’s personal tutor.

Breaking into his room in the middle of the night is the first indication that Superboy is still receiving subpar lessons from his father, if he’s getting any at all. Damian would have recognized an intruder from the moment they set foot on the blades of grass at Wayne Manor, and it’s a sign of poor judgment that Superboy can’t do the same.

He’s less than enthused about spending more time with someone who is so obviously deadweight, but if the goal is to make him _better_ so he can perform his duties as Superboy properly, Damian is the best person for the job. It's a small sacrifice to make to keep a burden off the field.

(He has an itinerary for training memorized, now—how many assassins had he taught from the moment he learned to walk? How many blades had he blocked with his bare skin, gritting through the bite of steel? He can be reasonably assured that Superboy, at the very least, isn’t even at the level of being able to _hit_ him yet.)

They’re a quarter of the way through Damian’s training regimen when he slips a tiny amount of Kryptonite in his pocket. This time, it’s not for an emergency plan. He knows that his father will notice. He also knows his father won’t tell Superboy’s father. How much Kryptonite his father has in the Cave is something to be kept between them, and if he can mold Superboy into a better soldier, what Superman doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

He calls Superboy out to a rooftop in Gotham one evening; a wide expanse, perfect for sparring. If there is a place in Gotham that Damian could call his favorite, this would ironically be it: an arena within a concrete jungle, thrumming with the pulse of the nightlife. Perhaps it’s the freedom in the crisp air, cold enough to sting, that gives him a sense of belonging.

As soon as he touches down from his final leap in the air, Superboy notices Damian’s extra baggage. He struggles against gravity for a moment, brows furrowing; then, he looks to Damian, and his eyes immediately narrow. “Robin, do you have—”

“Silence,” Damian says, putting his hands behind his back. His cape flutters in the wind with more velocity than Superboy can manage.

Superboy frowns. He doesn’t shift out of his fighting stance, but he seems more confused than angry. “I told you before to stop saying that, it’s annoying.”

“And like I told you before, _shut up_ , then.” He reaches into his pocket; Superboy grits his teeth at the green, soft glow of his greatest weakness against Damian’s gauntlets.

“Why do you even _have_ that?” Superboy wrinkles his nose. “Wait, never mind. I don’t know why I’m asking when your dad’s Batman.”

“Good. That makes this easier, then.” Damian holds the Kryptonite in his hands with a grip nearly strong enough to break it.

Part of him hates this. Hates the way that Superboy is looking at him right now, with suspicion and unease. Hates the way it reminds him of how Father looked at him, at how Grayson looked at him three years ago. But the other part of him—

The other part of him is just confused. Because Superboy doesn’t try to flee, or fight him. He looks at someone holding the only thing that can sap his powers away, and he doesn’t move. If it were Damian, well—Damian knows he’d have neutralized the threat before they could blink.

(Killed them, were he three years younger.)

When Damian doesn’t immediately move, Superboy’s suspicion starts to ebb. “You could at least sound less supervillain-y when you talk,” he says. He crosses his arms and huffs like a petulant child facing down an early bedtime. “Did you realize you can’t win against me without cheating?”

“ _No_ ,” Damian blurts out—dammit, he took the bait. Mentally, he counts down from ten, in the way that he only seems to have to do around Superboy. “Kryptonite or no Kryptonite, I could beat you in a fight. Stop harboring illusions of grandeur.”

“You start speaking really fancy like that when you get frustrated, so that’s a yes!”

“It’s for your training, idiot!” Damian sputters. They haven’t even _started_ this little exercise, and Damian is already pinching the bridge of his nose where his domino mask meets his skin. “I have Kryptonite, I could truly be a threat to you. Quit bantering with me and take this seriously.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t a threat.” And then, as if Damian couldn’t be more irritated, Superboy gives the worst lopsided grin his stupid face can manage. “You’re way too small to take me down.”

Robin can’t help it. He immediately lunges forward, charging with all the shaken fury caged within him. Superboy laughs, dodging Robin’s obvious, impulsive strike with gleeful foolishness, Kryptonite be damned.

Superboy is bound to the laws of gravity now, though, so Robin takes the new level playing field in stride. It’s a rare moment of even ground: enemies and foes are never kind enough to treat him as anything less than a pest to be crushed beneath their heels, but Superboy keeps calling him a _partner_ , or at the very least, an opponent worthy of respect.

Kryptonite still in hand, Robin gathers momentum with a quick motion of his legs, a zigzag dash toward a weakened Superboy. On his final step, he volleys from the concrete to jump and kick at his target’s chest from below, creating an upward lunge that knocks Superboy back.

“It’s a benefit in combat!” Robin shouts to him as Superboy picks himself back up. It was a light strike; Robin is careful to control the kinetic energy he has within him. “You’re a gigantic target at that size!”

“Yeah, but I’m a _lot_ stronger. It doesn’t matter how big a target I am as long as I can hit you.” Superboy dashes to the side, avoiding Robin’s first strike, but Robin quickly twists on his feet and uses his elbow to reach Superboy’s chest, angling it just right to strike and knock the wind out of him. He falls back, gritting his teeth; the blow hadn’t hurt that much even with the Kryptonite aura, Robin is sure, but the surprise makes Superboy fall to the rough ground.

“Not if I hit you first,” Robin replies, standing over Superboy with a smirk. “Come on, keep trying.”

Much to his astonishment, Superboy actually pushes himself up with his legs barreling toward Robin. The shock of Superboy, of all people, using Robin’s momentary reprieve to take an extra swipe catches Robin off guard, and he’s too slow to pull back. The kick connects, pushing at his kneecap with a weak force, and Robin stumbles, eyes wide.

“See? I hit you.” Superboy puts a hand on his hips and puffs his chest out. “Now we’re even.”

If Robin is like a carefully controlled storm, captured in a glass bottle filled to bursting, Superboy is like a hurricane: always in motion, twisting back and forth with messy strokes, and a core predicated on simplicity. Robin’s strikes are precise and measured with years of practice; Superboy’s are powerful and wild. But there’s _potential_ there, underneath the kindness and bravery, and with every jab he takes at the air, Robin knows he’s closer to unlocking it.

For protection. To help him be a better soldier—a better savior.

They trade blows back and forth until Superboy’s motions start to slow, his body weighing down on him. Robin disengages and shifts his body out of a fighting stance; Damian pockets the Kryptonite, and he can already see the weight of the world beginning to lift from Superboy’s shoulders. “All right. That was satisfactory.”

“That’s like saying I was perfect, coming from you.” Superboy relaxes, and Kent grins a thousand-watt smile. It’s so blindingly bright that Damian has to look away.

“That’s not what I said.”

Kent strides over slowly and gives him a gentle nudge with his elbow. “Well, that’s the first time you’ve praised me like that, so I think it counts. Come on, let’s rest for a couple minutes.” And then he just plops down on the ground unceremoniously, laying back on his cape and staring up at the sky.

What else can Damian do except lay down next to him? He rolls his cape up behind him and descends to the ground, biting his lip as Kent snickers at his properly dignified method of keeping his uniform free from unnecessary dirt. “Fine, we’ll rest. But not for long.” Damian pulls the pebble of Kryptonite from his pocket and tosses it into a lead-lined compartment of his utility belt. Kent deserves at least that much.

Kent watches the green glow disappear, and the last of his tension eases from his body. “You know, you go about it in really weird ways, but that was a good idea. Making me think about how I should fight without my powers.” He sits up to put his arms behind his head as a pillow. The sky is covered with the din of city lights, but beneath the orange glow of Gotham’s ever-present neon cavalcade, a procession of stars twinkles and flickers in and out of existence. “Next time, tell me about it first, though. I was kind of freaked out when you showed up with Kryptonite.”

“You don’t trust me.” Damian stares into the sky. Orion hangs overhead, listening to his quiet provocation solemnly.

“I didn’t say that.” He can hear the cape of Kent’s uniform shuffling as he turns his head and rolls over, attempting to look Damian in the eye. Damian’s head inches incrementally toward him, but otherwise doesn’t move, and Kent sighs. “I just mean… If we’re partners, you should tell me about what you’re planning.”

Damian bristles slightly at the word again. _Partners._ It’d been forced on them by their fathers, and it still doesn’t feel quite right. It feels like he’s expected to see Kent as an equal, despite their difference in experience.

(And when had he become _Kent_ in Damian’s mind?)

“Fine. If it will help you for next time, I will detail parts of my training regimen so you can properly prepare. Try to keep up.”

Kent slides closer on the ground, and then shoves Damian playfully with his arm. “Next time, we should go out to the farm. It’s way more open than this, so there’s lots of room to fight. And the sky is so much prettier. You can actually see the stars there.”

Damian grumbles. “We’re not here to stargaze, you just insisted on a rest.”

“Okay,” Kent says, propping up on his side with an elbow. Damian turns to face him, and the stars are reflected back in his eyes; Rigel sits in the center, its brightness dimmed by the pure sunshine in Kent’s gaze. “But it’s a neat bonus. So next time, let’s go somewhere you can see them better. The farm?”

“For training,” Damian finishes for him. His face is warm when he rips himself away to the stars. “Just training.”

“Yeah,” Kent replies, nodding. “For training.”

 

* * *

_4\. Because he’s untrustworthy._

“Stop moving so much, Damian,” Kent says, frowning when Damian immediately grits his teeth in reflex. The gauze in his trembling hands is soaked with more anxious energy than saline—useless now, more than likely never useful in the first place.

“ _Names_ ,” Damian hisses out with a ragged breath.

“No one’s around for miles.”

“And? You and your father can hear miles away.” Damian’s legs tangle with anxiety, scrunching up the cover from the rough forest ground that Kent’s discarded cape provides him. Suddenly, Kent pins the scrap of gauze against a deep laceration on his arm, and Damian has to hold back the urge to suck in a gasp at the pressure. This is stupid. He should be better prepared than this. He’s been treating his own wounds for years—he can disinfect his own injuries, twist out his own knives, all because he’s had to, but biting back the pain _now_ is both more important and so much harder.

Kent’s frown deepens, as if Damian is acting a part that’s so hard to puzzle out he’s considering giving up. “My superhearing isn’t that good yet,” he finally says. “Are you sure I’m doing this right? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Pressure applied to a deep wound is always going to hurt.” He holds back the _you’re doing fine_ praise. Kent hasn’t done enough to warrant that much, not yet. “It’s a consequence of broken tissue and—”

“Yeah, yeah, sciencey stuff. You’re so smart, I get it.” Kent rolls his eyes and reaches for the bandages Damian pulled from his utility belt, dropping the spent and red-soaked gauze. Half of Damian’s own costume is off, the cape and gauntlets discarded and folded neatly to the side under a tree to act as a shelter for the myriad of medical implements Damian has kept buried as a contingency plan—vials of disinfectant solution, tweezers, small scissors, sutures, bandages, gauze, and bags to keep all of it in. There’s a growing mountain of bloodied and discarded implements that Kent is careful to dance around, and a splint constructed from bandages and branches. “Why didn’t you avoid getting hurt, then?”

The question is so piercing that Damian falters for a moment. He shoots Kent an icy glare, daring him to dig further. “Don’t imply it was a mistake.”

“I mean.” Kent wraps the roll of bandages around Damian’s arm. Damian is less than enthused about giving Kent such close access to him when he’s injured, but the damn goody-two-shoes insisted. Distracted by blood loss, Damian hadn’t had the strength to disagree; wouldn’t have even if his semi-captor didn’t have superstrength. Kent gives him a once-over, surveying his crumpled form. Using his X-ray vision, if the two-bit Superboy has developed that power yet. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get hit. And now you’re bleeding really bad, and I’m pretty sure your other arm is broken.” He’s twisted the bandage around Damian’s arm about five times by now.

“It _is_ broken,” Damian barks, holding the offending limb with the arm Kent is working on. The motion causes Kent to pull away from him; the wrapping tightens with the distance, making Damian wince. “And you’re using too much of that roll of bandages. Be conservative.”

“Sorry.” One loop of the bandage starts to fall away as Kent loosens his grip. “I’ve never had to do this before.”

“Clearly.”

“Do you ever stop insulting people?”

Damian just scoffs in reply. “I treat others with the respect they deserve.”

“Well, before you would have just tried to punch me or whatever.” Kent looks awfully proud of this fact. “So a scoff is a higher rung, right?”

“Stop stalling, or I _will_ punch you.”

“You’ve got a broken arm.” The gauze is wrapped looser now, and Kent grabs for the scissors to cut the end of it, blissfully unaware that Damian actually could punch him, broken arm or no. “So maybe settle down a bit, or it’ll get worse. How do I do this again?”

“Cut it lengthwise and tie the ends around my arm.”

“Okay, so… Like this?” With the scissors in his hand, Kent cuts it carefully right down the middle. He puts the scissors back to the side and starts to wrap it again; the close proximity makes Damian squirm. “Damian, if you keep moving, I’ll tie it wrong.”

Damian tuts, biting back the codenames reminder again, but he takes a deep breath anyway. “I’m barely moving.”

“You’re shaking. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He must really be slipping if Kent, one of the most oblivious people he knows, is worried about him. “Stop wasting time, just tie the damn gauze.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Kent mutters, and then there’s the tell-tale second of tight pressure as he ties the ends of the gauze together. “There. Done, I think.”

Damian looks over Kent’s handiwork. It’s… not perfect, but it’s serviceable, at least until he can hobble back into the Cave. For a first try, it’s actually pretty good. “All right,” Damian says, as neutral a response as he can give.

“I just patched up the deepest wound I’ve ever seen and I didn’t freak out,” Kent says, a hint of pride in his eyes. “I think I deserve better than an _all right_.”

Damian just grumbles, because if Kent thinks he’s going to give him high praise, he clearly hasn’t spent enough time around Robin. “Fine. Yes, my arm is no longer bleeding out. There’s still the other to attend to.”

That actually gets Kent’s face to drop further, from concentration to worry and anxiety. “I’m not going to set a bone for you.”

“You have to,” Damian urges. It’s either setting the bone, or being useless for the rest of the night, and Damian has never let himself be useless. “I’m willing to admit that your powers will be of some use.”

“Gee, thanks, I’m glad you keep me around as dumb muscle.” Kent scoffs. It’s almost as if he’s starting to take after Damian himself. But there’s a hesitation etched in him that Damian has never had, an innocent edge. “What if I end up… I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. Just listen to my instructions—”

“Damian, I might.” He’s raised his voice with a force Damian normally expects to be spit from his own mouth, his own toxicity. “Look, you already got hurt because of—”

“Enough.” Damian puts his repaired hand up, hoping Kent will catch the sight of the bandages he fastened. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had a bone set. If you follow my instructions, I’ll be fine.”

Kent’s expression falls. Damian can’t tell whether he’s upset or resigned, but he whispers out a strained, “Fine. Tell me the minute it hurts and I’ll stop.”

“It’ll only hurt for a second,” Damian replies. He tries to soften the edges of his razor-sharp tone, but he’s never felt like his voice belongs to him when he does. Like he was never raised for something as simple and commonplace as kindness. “Go ahead. You can use your X-ray vision to put the bone back into its socket, and pull at a straight angle. Then put the splint on it.”

Kent looks away for a moment, biting his lip. He seems to steel himself, because when he turns back to Damian, his eyes are narrowed with resolve.

Damian nods, and Kent starts to pull. There’s the smothering blackness of pain, a fire crackling in his ears, as though his arm would be pulled off with more pressure, his vision swirling in whites and blacks and coalescing together in bright sparks and shudders of heat and then—

And then it’s over. Kent switches out his grip for the splint, starts tying the last roll of bandages around his arm to steady the bindings, and the flames start to fade. Damian unclenches his jaw and lets out a shaky wheeze. “There. That’s all.”

“Did I… Did I hurt you? You were gritting your teeth so hard, I thought you’d break them.” Kent’s gaze on him is… gentle as he fastens the end of the bandages. Gentle, and worried, and Damian doesn’t like the look of it, so he sets his focus on a nearby tree, watching the leaves rustle in the evening wind.

“It’s a lot easier when I do it myself,” Damian lies. He lets his voice fall to a grumble. “But you were quick, and it’s set properly, so I’ll give you credit for that.” The pain flares up again when he starts to stand, using his other arm as a crutch.

Kent begins to pick himself up, but then he freezes, as though Damian’s quiet admittance of reality shocks him to his core. “You’ve… set your own bone?” He looks at him with an inscrutable expression. It’s not pity, and it’s not necessarily sympathy, but whatever it is, Damian hates it. Hates what it’s doing to him more. Kent keeps staring at him, his gaze steady. “You’re thirteen.”

This is not the first time Kent has brought up Damian’s age whenever he mentions anything about his past, but Kent hasn’t earned the details yet. All Damian can do is narrow his eyes and cross his arm over his chest. Without the proper use of his other, it just makes him look like he’s huddling into himself. “I’m aware.”

“I mean… Thirteen-year-olds shouldn’t _do_ that kind of stuff,” Kent trails off, gesturing in some way, as if that would help Damian understand somehow.

“I wasn’t thirteen at the time.” Damian bites his lip. Whatever he could say here isn’t going to go over well, he’s sure, so he might as well give Kent the guarded truth. “Last time, I was nine. And I haven’t made the same mistake since then.”

“ _Nine_.” He looks… angry, in some way. Damian braces himself for whatever acerbic words are going to come, but then Kent’s tension softens. “The more I hear about you, Damian, the less I get.”

“Names.”

“Okay, then why were you setting your own bones at nine, Robin?”

Damian is silent for far too long. Hesitating is a sign of weakness, and Damian has been trained to take advantage of every weakness. Seeing that same corruption in himself is troubling. “It doesn’t matter. Take me home.”

Kent sighs, clearly unconvinced. “Fine, don’t tell me right now. But I’m your partner, so if you ever want to talk about it, well, you know.” He starts picking up the used gauze and tweezers, shoving them haphazardly in an empty plastic bag, and then hands Damian his cape and gauntlets. “You know where to find me.”

_As if_ , Damian’s mind supplies on reflex as he puts the final pieces of his uniform back on. He keeps silent for now, because Kent is still his ride home from this wretched conversation. Whatever he says is going to be used against him later, anyway—Kent hasn’t proven himself to be petty enough to hold grudges, but Damian knows his own poison seeps into others whether he means it to or not.

“And, um, hey.” Kent’s words are more unsure this time. He clears his throat and rubs at his face with a free hand, wrapping his other around Damian’s middle to help them escape. He’s careful to avoid Damian’s arm and splint, and for that, at least, Damian can hold back retorting with a biting comment before Kent can continue. “Thanks for saving me. It was kind of stupid of you, though.”

Damian rolls his eyes right as Kent takes flight. “We’re partners, idiot. Whether or not you _could_ have actually been hurt by a blow isn’t important. You can’t let yourself get distracted. That’s all I was showing you.”

“I think you’re just secretly nice and you don’t want me to know it for some reason.”

Damian grumbles, pushes his hood over his head, and hopes the wind rushing between them fills the silence.

 

* * *

_5\. Because he knows nothing about you._

Kent finds out. Because of course the one thing that Damian has tried to keep buried will always come back to haunt him. Because of course his mother would show up, hold a sword to his neck, and tell him—insist, force, and other, stronger words that she keeps bared like the cold steel of her weapons—to rejoin her side.

Funny, then, that he finds he doesn’t care any longer. That the more time he’s spent around Kent, the more he’s realized that the break of dawn can part the clouds of his past. Not that it will matter, when Kent won’t want anything to do with him anymore. And how can Damian blame him? His hands are covered in blood, no matter how much he tries to scrub them clean. Kent was born to help; Damian was born to kill.

Damian spends as much effort as he can trying to avoid him. At the end of the school day, he instructs Pennyworth to lift the helicopter off the ground immediately, despite the raised eyebrow he gets in response. He ignores his father’s grunt at the dinner table the next night, along with his gruff question: “Clark said that Jon hasn’t seen you for a few days. Is everything—”

“Everything is fine, Father,” Damian interrupts, pushing out his chair. “I’m going to my room.”

His father makes a noise somewhere between confusion and disapproval, but he makes no move to stop him. Damian isn’t sure whether he’d rather be left alone or forced to talk about it, but the lack of reaction twists something deep in his stomach.

He pulls his phone out as a distraction from his racing thoughts on his way to his room, and there’s a cheery notification blinking at him on the screen.

_Unread Message (1): Kent_.

Damian is about to swipe it away, but another one arrives almost immediately. _Unread Message (2): Kent_. Resigned to his fate, Damian unlocks his phone, opens his messages (and when had his hands started trembling?), and steels himself.

_Damian, let’s go hang out? I haven’t seen you in a while._

_If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine, but we’re still partners. And I don’t care about what happened._

It figures. Of course light given name wouldn’t care. Damian would rather he be angry; his carefree attitude defies the gravitas that Damian feels the monumental admittance of his past warrants. He sighs and starts to type out a response.

_Meet me on the rooftop._ He knows he doesn’t have to say which one.

_You, or Robin?_

_Me._

It doesn’t take him long to get there. He’d memorized the multitude of methods to reach the rooftop for whenever he needed a break from the manor. The sun has started to dip beneath the horizon line by the time he dangles his feet off the edge of solid concrete. The bright orange glow reminds him of—

(Stargazing. It reminds him of stargazing, of Orion, of Rigel high in the sky, and still somehow not the brightest thing in his world.)

He hears Kent land before he sees him. He must have taken a back route, because he’s not wearing his Superboy uniform, but his hat and glasses aren’t on, either. A middle ground between who Damian knows and who he wants to be.

“Hey,” Kent says, settling beside him on the ground. He’s too far away to touch, giving Damian as much literal space as he is metaphorical space. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Damian makes a small noise of acknowledgement, still staring off at the sun as though he could lose himself in it.

Kent clears his throat when he realizes Damian won’t fill the silence for him. “I meant what I said. About not caring.” He coughs, and when he next speaks, his voice is slightly farther away. He must have turned his head to avoid Damian’s gaze. “I mean, I knew you were… I knew something happened in your past. And I knew it wasn’t good, but…”

“But what?” Damian demands, whipping around to face him with building anger. “But you’ve realized that I’m dangerous? That at any moment, I could switch loyalties to something less sympathetic to your cause?”

“Geez, do you even listen to people before you talk?” Kent replies, clearly irritated. He grimaces, crosses his arms, and turns to Damian, staring down a killer with an expression fit for reprimanding a child throwing a temper tantrum. “That’s exactly the opposite of what I said. I said I don’t care. What part of that don’t you understand?”

_All of it_ , Damian thinks, biting his cheek.

“I don’t care because I knew you before I knew about… all of this.” He tosses his arms out toward the glow of the horizon, like Damian’s world has ever belonged there. “I knew you as the egotistical kid who fought with me because he didn’t know how else to talk to me. I knew you as the _great blood son of Batman_ ”—his voice shifts into a mocking replica of Damian’s monotone, and for that, Damian frowns—“before I knew you as some weird assassin lady’s kid. And I knew you as someone with a heart who tries so hard to pretend he don’t feel emotions before I knew you as a cold-blooded assassin, which you aren’t anymore, by the way.”

Damian stares at him, mouth agape. What Kent is saying is… true, on an objective level. It’s true that Kent knew him prior to his reputation. His father, his siblings—everyone else he’d met had learned of his past first, his bloody legacy before his name. But knowing that doesn’t get him any closer to understanding _this_ , understanding why Kent would still stay after hearing the full story.

“You’re so hard on yourself. And I know why, but I also think you’re being… I dunno. Unfair, I guess.” Kent pulls his knees off the side of the roof and bundles them into himself. His words are quieter, like it’s taking him more effort to pluck them from the surface of his heart. “I think you’re a good person, Damian. And I just wanted you to know that this isn’t going to change anything. So if you want to stop being friends, then we can, but—”

“I,” Damian croaks, before he can stop himself. He bites his lip to keep from revealing too much and saying more than he should. What does it really matter, when Jon—when Kent knows almost everything about him now? “I don’t want that.”

“Well, good.” Kent huffs. “Because I was lying. I wasn’t going to let you go anyway.”

Damian has no idea what to say to that. The idea that someone would know and still insist on staying is so foreign his brain can’t properly process it. He has doctorates in almost every subject, and he can recall almost every fact he’s ever learned, but he’s never been able to understand this particular ray of light. Frustrating, irritating, maddening, and kinder than Damian’s ever deserved.

“Anyway,” Kent says, standing up and brushing off his jeans. “That’s all I had to say. I like you, and this doesn’t change anything. I knew you’d be moping about it, so I wanted to get it off my chest before you went and turned into a turtle.”

“A turtle?”

“Yeah. You know, like, hid in your shell for the rest of your life?” Kent shrugs. “Maybe you should change your superhero name. A bird doesn’t really fit.”

“Shut up,” Damian says, standing up to his full height. Annoyingly, he’s still so much shorter than Kent is. He feels smaller than him right now, anyway—Kent is bigger than himself, a more forgiving person than Damian ever thought possible. “This conversation is making me ill.”

Kent elbows him in the ribs, the same way he did the last time they were here together, staring at the stars beyond the lights. Damian can see them start to glimmer from some place far away; they feel so much closer with Kent right beside him, somehow, like he’d stripped the stars from the sky for Damian to hold as his own.

Kent turns his attention back to Damian, soft smile gracing his face. “See you at school tomorrow?” he asks, holding out his fist.

After hesitating, Damian bumps his fist back. Kent laughs, and Damian looks away for fear of being burned. “Yeah,” he mutters, red starting to tint his cheeks. “See you then.”

Kent takes off without another word. Damian is left on the roof alone, staring off at the stars. Rigel seems darker on its own, without Kent to compare it to.

Damian takes his phone out. His lock screen—a picture of Kent stretching his camera out, two fingers up in a victory pose and shoving Damian’s grumbling face into the frame—stares back at him as he changes Kent’s contact name in his address book to _Jon_.

 

* * *

_6\. Because his presence is irritating._

He remembers, clearly, the time that Jon told him his house was always open. _It’s fine, Damian_ , he said, with that same affable smile that Damian still swears is from obliviousness, _come over whenever you want to. My dad said living with your dad must be a pain._

And. Well, it’s a lot more blunt than Damian thought Jon was capable of. But it’s also not wrong, which Damian hates more than Jon’s bluntness.

The manor is his house, but sometimes it never really feels like his _home_ , not with his father thinking he’s capable of what he’s left behind. At least he’s stopped caging Damian in like an animal liable to go feral at any moment. Either Damian has gotten better at dodging the security systems—probable—or his father disabled them to let him free for the evening after their argument. Him or Pennyworth. Damian is never sure which one trusts him these days, if either of them do.

Is it any shock that he would find himself on Jon’s doorstep after an offer like that? He’s not that enthused about spending more time with a Super, but he’s learned that distance is the only way to heal instead of hurt sometimes. With trepidation and anxiety in his heart, he rings the doorbell.

Superman, in his civilian outfit, is the one who answers the door. Unsurprising, with his superhuman senses.

“Damian!” Superman says, smile spreading across his face. The Kents are all the same. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Save it,” Damian mumbles. He doesn’t push past Superman, as much as he wishes he could. Jon’s caused him to give the man some grudging respect. “You probably know why I’m here, so can we stop pretending you’re clueless?”

“Never said I was.” Superman’s grin is more knowing now. “Working with Bruce is hard enough. I can’t imagine living with him.”

Superman has spent years wrestling with his father, of course he could assume. All Damian can do is tut under his breath. “Did he tell you?”

Superman shakes his head. “He barely tells me anything I need to know for work, he wouldn’t tell me about his family life.” He steps aside to finally let Damian in, gesturing for him to take his coat off. “You’re welcome here any time, you know. Jon is always asking if you can stay the night.”

Damian isn’t sure whether it’s the warmth of the house or the warmth of the occupants that heats him up inside.

In the living room, Lane is writing in a notebook, papers splayed out in front of her as if she’s searching for some great breakthrough. She might be, come to think of it—Jon tells him all the time about the amazing articles his parents write, and Damian has to admit that investigative journalism is a decently impressive form of intellectual detective work. After a bit of a groan, and judging from her expression, a decision to take a break, she looks up to see Damian standing near the doorway and gives him a small wave.

Trite. It feels like a happy family, a loving, functional family. Damian has only ever had a fractured peace, a manufactured happiness, and seeing the Kents achieve what he could not so effortlessly makes his heart ache.

_You’re welcome here any time, you know._

Damian shakes the thoughts out of his head and sneaks over to Jon’s room. He doesn’t bother to disguise his footsteps. Jon’s hearing has been getting better, lately, a far cry from the obliviousness Damian had fought early on. He’d discovered it earlier that week on a mission, when he told Damian with red blush on his face, _I knew you were okay. I was listening to your heart to make sure._ Damian didn’t have the courage to ask him why.

Jon opens the door to his room before Damian gets there. “Hey, D,” he says, as though there’s no surprise to his visit at all. “Your dad start bugging you again?”

Damian sighs, because… what’s the point in hiding anything from Jon? He knows more about Damian than anyone outside of his family. “It’s rare that he’d let me escape when he’s angry with me. Perhaps he realized his energy is better spent elsewhere.”

Jon’s eyebrows furrow, as if he doesn’t quite get it. “What do you mean, escape? It’s your house.”

Damian doesn’t respond. He pushes into Jon’s bedroom and sits on Jon’s desk chair, eyeing the papers fanned out on his desk with a scowl. “Just because it’s Friday night doesn’t mean you can slack on your work.”

“It’s Friday night _and_ my best friend is upset. I’m not gonna do my homework right now.”

“I’m not _upset_ ,” Damian protests weakly. Jon really can read him like a book in some dying tongue he’s trying to keep alive. “I just needed a reprieve.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mister _I don’t get sad_ and _I don’t have emotions_. You just admitted that you’re my best friend without fighting. That obviously means you’re upset.” Jon puts his hands on his hips and puffs his chest out. “So there.”

That’s a statement of finality that Damian can’t find it in himself to argue against. He groans instead, crossing his arms. The force of the action propels the wheels of his chair across Jon’s rug. It probably just makes him look childish. “Fine, yes. Something happened. You said I could visit.”

“Well, yeah, you can,” Jon says, sitting down on his bed. He gives Damian a small, encouraging smile. “And I’m happy you did. But you remember what I said when you broke your arm?”

“I haven’t forgotten a thing in my life.” Damian winces—there’s too much truth in that statement, too many venomous memories he wishes he could erase.

“Okay, so the offer’s still on the table. To talk about stuff, if you want to.”

Damian has never been good at talking about anything. Talking is a dangerous descent into revealing more information than necessary. Talking implies a familiarity no one has ever earned. Words are hard for him to force out from the layers of scar tissue in his lungs, in his heart.

His mouth is dry. He swallows, trying to find solace in involuntary motions. Little things that are a constant in himself, that he can count on to stay consistent.

“Or we could just watch a movie or something,” Jon says, breaking through the silence. He shrugs. “Whatever you want to do.”

He wants to talk about it. He wants the words to flow from his mouth without effort more suited to clawing from the shadows, like Jon can. He wants, and he’s never been allowed to _want_ before.

His expression must be pained, or conflicted, because Jon pats the space next to him. “You can sit over here if you want to.”

The offer—more of a request—hangs in the air for a few moments. Damian says nothing, but slowly, he peels himself off the chair and sits next to Jon, their legs just close enough to touch. Jon’s weight makes the mattress bend slightly, and he’s pulled forward into his orbit as though he were the sun and Damian a mere asteroid with its light flickering out.

He quickly rights himself and sits a bit further away. The inches between them feel more like miles after the momentary contact.

Damian swallows through a lump in his throat. “Father and I were on patrol earlier tonight.” The words are out before he lets himself process them. His voice is soft, strained, hoarse. He stares down at his crossed arms; he’d switched out of his uniform as soon as he’d gotten home, and the long-sleeve shirt he wore as a replacement feels constricting now. “We found…”

_Dozens upon dozens of animals, kept in cages and restrained, bites and bruises and untreated wounds. Blood on the ground, a trail leading to a sickening reality. A gleeful laughter from the ringleader, as though he enjoyed every moment of his sadistic torture. A clap of his hands, and an order for his abused soldiers to attack._

Damian shakes his head, forcing the thoughts away. Jon doesn’t deserve the ugliness of the truth. “It doesn’t matter what we found. But I was… I almost lost control of myself.”

Jon’s expression tightens. He knows of Damian’s past now, in bits and pieces. He knows exactly what that means. “Did you…?”

Again, Damian shakes his head, turning to look Jon in the eyes. “No. I promised myself I wouldn’t. That I could… That I could do better.”

Jon says nothing, but the gaze he reflects back is inscrutable. His eyes are soft, a light twinkling in them. He’s frowning, but there’s no edge to it, as though Damian doesn’t scare him at all. As though Damian had never scared him in the first place.

“We arrested him, but…” Damian is quick to supply the ending, even if it didn’t close like a book. Handing the scum off to the Gotham police felt like giving up and giving in; Damian stayed until the animals were out of the building and safe, and made his father swear to donate money to every shelter. But it doesn’t make up for everything. There’s more to the story, so he takes in a gulp of air to force the words out. “Father was… angry with me, for hesitating and considering it.” He can’t look at Jon again. There’s too great a chance of his emotions spilling over from a basin filled to the brim. In an attempt to relax, he uncrosses his arms, letting them rest at his knees. “But he was right. I did. I thought about it.”

“But you didn’t do it,” Jon whispers. He moves like… Like he’s trying to embrace Damian, but thinks better of it at the last second. Like he thinks Damian will push him away. “And that’s what matters, right?”

“I’ll always have their blood in my veins.” He looks down at his fists, scrunched together so tight his knuckles are turning white. The words are harder and harder to get out now. The more important they are, the more difficult it is to keep going. It’s like digging a bullet out of an open wound: the searing pain of aching hurt, the relief of blood between his fingers. “That… knowledge of who I could be, if I slip up. Who I am.”

“D, I know who you are. Man, you think so much of yourself, and then you think so little of yourself.” Jon scratches at his cheek, as though unveiling something so simple it’s written in the air and Damian just can’t grasp it. “If it were anyone but you, I wouldn’t get it.”

“What?”

“I’m saying that you’re _you_. I know it must be hard to deal with, but you’re who you want to be, you know? I don’t know everything you’ve been through, but all the fighting you to do be good makes you way stronger than someone who does it without thinking. You just said that you’re trying to do better. That means you could choose to do worse, but you don’t.” Jon’s eyes are soft. He tries to look right at Damian and somehow manages to see his soul, X-ray vision be damned.

“Sometimes,” Damian starts. His voice is scratched again, and the words need extra time to form on his tongue. He’s lodged the bullet deeper somehow, pressed in where it hurts instead of icing over the white-hot heat. “Sometimes I don’t know who I want to be.”

Damian has always had two different lives, pulling him in two different directions. Jon is an _and_ in perfect motion: Jonathan Kent and Superboy in equal measure, balancing each other out to make a greater whole. Damian has only ever been a _but_ , a lesser part of himself and a subtraction from the baseline: he is Robin, but he is also Damian al Ghul, and the corrosion that his heritage calls his blood flows through him with every instinctive strike at the heart.

Jon shakes his head. The expression on his face is pained, somehow. Whatever it is, it’s not pity, and Damian grips his knuckles tighter at the realization, at the idea that Jon is hurting _for_ him and not _because of_ him. His voice is as scratched as Damian’s is when he mutters, “I know, D.” He reaches out again; this time, he makes the connection, his arm resting on Damian’s shoulder with a comforting pressure.

Damian doesn’t push him away. Jon’s always been able to draw him to his warmth with gravity, after all, celestial bodies on a collision course to a nova of light and shade. It’s not surprising that he’d find his walls crumbling faster than he can build them back.

“That’s okay. I know you; you’ll figure it out. And,” Jon says, giving Damian’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, “I’ll be there to help you. That’s why we’re partners, right?”

Partners. That word again. That’s not fair to Jon, not anymore. It implies detachment, and what barriers remain between them? There’s the barrier of distance, but it’s destroyed when Damian puts his shaking hand on top of Jon’s and replies, “Friends.”

The bright smile Jon gives him shouldn’t be surprising, but Damian finds himself captivated anyway. Jon just pulls Damian closer, and Damian puts up a token resistance, grumbling softly under his breath. “Yeah,” Jon replies, laughing at Damian’s frown, “Friends.”

 

* * *

_7\. Because he’s unpredictable._

The more time he spends with Jon, the more he realizes: they work in perfect harmony, a crescendo to something greater. It feels almost natural to step forward when Jon steps back. He knows all of Jon’s silent tells, the indications of his plans (and isn’t it a miracle that he’s letting Jon formulate their plots now; Damian is still the master of control, but he’s willing to let Jon have his day). He knows Jon understands his, too.

The more time he spends with Jon, the more he realizes: he’s starting to slip up. He finds himself catching Jon’s gaze when he shouldn’t, blocking more strikes than he needs to. There’s no reason he should guard someone almost entirely invulnerable from attacks that won’t hurt him anyway, but now he has an instinctive need to keep him out of harm’s way. Like if Jon got hurt somehow, Damian would feel the pain, too, buried so deep in his heart that he wouldn't be able to sew up the seams.

It’s a disaster waiting to happen. They’re in the eye of the storm, rain ready to pour down on them the moment Damian lets his guard down. He knows, logically, that Jon can watch over himself—that if either of them need to be careful, it’s him and not Jon. Damian is only human, and Jon can block nearly any attack without even trying.

He knows, logically, that he doesn’t need to worry. Yet knowing that doesn’t _help_ somehow, and if anything, it makes him more nervous. There are certain things that Jon can’t defend against: Kryptonite, for one, and Damian knows that better than most. No matter how much he’s helped Jon train to protect himself, drills and practice aren’t the real thing.

There’s no _if_ in their line of work, only a _when_ , and Damian does the best he can to keep that moment off for good. It’s long overdue when it finally happens—all it takes is a split second of distraction and then Jon dives in front of him to protect him, tossed in the water from the barge above their base with all the force of a bird knocked from its flight path. Damian’s eyes immediately go wide, watching Jon disappear beneath his view, and—

And Robin knows that he should keep fighting. That the most logical thing to do is to defeat the threat in front of him, and then save Superboy as soon as he can. But Damian sees Jon fall into the water, and he knows that logic has no place with his emotions anymore, no matter howdesperately he tries to keep them linked. He gives his opponent a kick in the solar plexus strong enough to knock him out, and dives into the water to look for Jon.

His own safety is supplemental. If Jon is safe, then it doesn’t matter what happens to him.

It shouldn’t surprise him anymore, the depth of emotion he feels for Jon. That after everything they’ve been through together—the thought of being separate from him, of Jon’s light flickering out, is terrifying enough to bring Damian to his knees.

He’s underwater for too long, almost about to run out of air, and then suddenly he’s catapulted upward by none other than Superboy flying to the surface. He should have expected that. Jon gives him a grin that Damian barely sees through the water, but it still brightens up his world.

Jon is, somehow, mostly fine after being thrust into the water. They dispatch, tie up, and hand off their enemy to the Justice League as quickly as they can, with the efficacy of partners greater than their fathers have ever been. As soon as they’re on their own, Jon doubles over, falling to the ground as his cortisol levels finally run dry. He starts to wheeze and cough, expelling the remaining water from his lungs, and something in Damian's soul _aches_.

“Jon, are you okay?!” Damian feels his heart nearly leap out of his chest as he runs as fast as his legs can move. He’s told himself over and over he’s never been allowed to want, he shouldn’t be allowed to want, he shouldn’t _want_ , but all he wants is Jon to be safe, and so he rushes over to pat Jon on the back and help him up.

And then—Jon _laughs_ , and it’s not a laugh from madness or pain but from happiness, as far as Damian can tell. It’s the lightest sound Damian has ever heard, a wind chime caught in the breeze under the glow of a fading summer sun, and the tender feeling he gets comes from _Jon Kent_ of all people, laughing as Damian frets over him. Jon’s torso hits the ground while he’s still coughing, but his tremors are dispersed with what can only be described as throes of joy.

“Why in the world are you laughing?” Damian demands, rounding on him. “You could have died, idiot!”

“Because—you’ve never done that before.”

Wherever this is leading, it’s a minefield. And yet Damian barrels into it anyway with clumsy footwork when he asks, “What?”

“Called me by my name. It’s always _Kent_ or _Superboy_. You’ve never said Jon before.” Jon rolls over on his back to look up at Damian. His eyes light up with all the energy and brightness of the sun that he was born from, and all Damian can think is—

_Oh._

_That’s what this feeling is._

Damian has to fight to keep the instinctive shudders of his emotions under control. There are a lot of things he’s trying to get better at these days: capturing criminals instead of killing them, moving forward instead of staying in the past. But he’s never been good at listening to his emotions. They’ve been walled off and chained up for years, locked away before Damian even knew the words to describe them.

And somehow, Jon set them free. Like those barriers had never existed at all. Like they were made of mere glass, easy to shatter and crack in spiderweb patterns, but Jon was gentle enough to break through without breaking _him_.

So with a deep breath, Damian tries to compose himself. He’s obviously failing, because Jon’s laughter doesn’t let up. It’s a laugh _with_ him and not _at_ him, and the difference is something Damian’s only been able to piece out recently. “Is it that unusual? We’re partners.” He coughs and looks away, avoiding that gaze kind enough to melt stone. “I have to keep an eye on you.”

Jon’s laughter finally subsides, and Damian finds he misses it all too soon. In its place is a warm smile. Jon’s smile is made of liquid sunshine, distilled and sweetened like tendrils of twilight on the water, warm and glimmering in all the right places. “No, it’s not weird,” Jon says, his voice bright. There’s a dusting of red on his cheeks. “I think it’s nice. Can you say it again?”

“I don’t see why I should have to. I already have your attention.” Damian’s resolve is crumbling under the weight of that smile. If Jon is turning red, Damian is positively scarlet. That damn _smile_ , with a fondness that Damian has never seen before. “But… Fine, Jon.”

Jon laughs again, and it suits him perfectly; a small, beautiful symphony that sends Damian’s heart careening off a cliff. “Thanks, Damian,” he says, reaching up for one of Damian’s hands.

For the first time, Damian doesn’t pull away on instinct. He lets Jon do what he wants, to take Damian’s gauntlet off and put his faith in hands colored in rusted blood. In what feels like ages—Damian is used to the telltale blur Jon's powers would create, so he must move more in slow motion than in his habitual whirlwind vigor—Jon reaches for his hand and they’re connected in the space between them, Jon's fingers tangled with Damian’s own, threaded together as perfectly as two final pieces of a puzzle. He gives Damian’s hand a light squeeze, closing his eyes with a contented hum.

Damian freezes in shock for a moment, his emotions getting the better of him. Jon’s hand is… nice, and comforting. Soft and warm and real, a sturdy tether to the bright asterism that their relationship has become. He breathes out to relax his tensed muscles. Jon would never use this to destroy him; Jon would never hurt him in the first place. It takes effort, to push past all his learned defense mechanisms, but Jon seems willing to wait or to help him.

“I’m sorry,” Damian mutters. He holds Jon’s hand tight, but he can’t meet his eyes.

“What? What are you sorry for?”

“I’m not…” He bites his lip. How many times has he tried to speak around Jon, only for the words to be mangled in his throat? “Used to this. This… _emotion_ , I don’t know. Not having words to define it makes it worse.”

Jon smiles at him again. Concentrated rays of light, as usual. “That’s okay. As long as it doesn’t bother you. Can I keep holding your hand?”

It doesn’t bother him. It never has, not with Jon. Damian closes his eyes and sighs, as contentedly as he can muster. “Yes. Just…” _Don’t let go_ , his mind finishes.

Jon squeezes his hand again, and pulls him down to lie next to him. Damian squawks the most undignified noise, but past the initial jolt of the world rotating around him, he finds it more comforting on the ground, to be level with Jon rather than above him. For all his bluster, and all the time they spend together, Jon will always find new ways to surprise him. He lets his head lay in the space between Jon’s chest and arm, nestled like a newborn kitten searching for warmth despite the chill of the water still soaking Jon’s clothes. Jon’s steady heartbeat lulls him to safety, a lighthouse guiding him home.

 

* * *

_8\. Because he makes you weak._

The barrier between _family_ and _friend_ has always been demarcated cleanly in Damian’s mind. Father, Mother, Grayson, and the rest of his unfortunate siblings fall into the _family_ column; some of them trustworthy, most of them not. The _friends_ column is smaller, and it’s a group of people he’s made for himself. There’s Maya, and…

And then there’s Jon. Jon has always refused to be classified in one area, as though he’d slipped through the cracks somehow. He’s not _family_ , not by blood or legal ties, but _friend_ isn’t exactly it, either— _partners_ is closer, but it defies a familiarity that they’ve grown to have. Damian wouldn’t trust a simple work partner with his life, not on and off the field, but he does trust Jon. He's realized, with distinctive clarity, that he’s always trusted Jon.

To help him process such an abstract concept, Damian checks through the running list he keeps in his head, itemized and categorized with the efficiency expected of the blood son of Batman.

_Inherit the mantle of Batman._ That’s the easy one. It’s his birthright, and Grayson might have held it first, but he’s not the one that _needs_ it; Todd and Drake don’t even want to be in the running. Damian has studied from birth to become heir apparent, and though before he was sitting on nothing but a throne of empty promises, Batman is a symbol that means something. Batman is a force for good, and Damian has been trying to be good these days.

_Be a better person._ It’s a work in progress. There are some things he can never run from, some things he can never be after the most formative years of his life, but he’s learned a new truth recently: that he can be better than he was trained, that saving himself doesn’t mean killing another.

_Fall in love_ was never on the list. Damian is no stranger to emotion, but it always feels like it comes from somewhere far from himself, like a wistful feeling of city smog he once held in bloodstained robes. He’s no stranger to emotion, but confronting that emotion is a different matter; falling in love belies a vice he’s not allowed to have.

And yet. And yet he did fall in love, because being in Gotham has made him soft. Being in Gotham, and being with a boy made of nothing but pure light and Rembrandt rays, has made him vulnerable.

(And yet, Jon would never use it as a means of attack. Damian has been trained for every eventuality, for every uncertainty, but _Jon backstabbing him_ has not and will never be something he needs to plan for.)

Damian still has to push down the instinctive curl of his hands when he strikes at an enemy’s neck—and what counts as an enemy these days, the lines have always been blurred between _enemy_ and _inconvenience_ —and sometimes, sometimes he wonders how long he can keep it up. The voice in his head, the overlapping words of his childhood monotone and his mother’s commands, always whispers close enough to make him shiver: a crush of the skull, a pressure on the throat, a twisted knife in the abdomen. It’d be easy. Like he was raised to do.

But Jon lives every day of his life thinking that humanity is better than the sum of its parts. Jon looks at him and sees the good that he insists is there, the good that Damian was born without. If there is good blooming in him, it is only because Jon has planted the seeds. Jon Kent, after all, is nothing if not endlessly loving. He is a ray of the sun personified, a progeny of the light, and for Damian, who has never been anything but a child of the darkness, it is only natural that he’d find himself drawn to the warmth given by someone with too much love to give.

(On an objective level, emotions are a weakness to be exploited. Damian has been trained to be nothing but a weapon, and weapons aren’t supposed to _feel_. On an objective level, he knows this. On a deeper, more primal level that he didn’t think died so much as never existed in the first place, he has always been a broken blade from the day he was born.

Is it any wonder that he’d fall for Jon, in the end?)

 

* * *

_9\. Because he makes you happy._

The stars flicker above in the night sky, pinpricks of light in a sea of darkness. Blades of grass tickle his skin as a slight breeze rolls in, bringing the scent of sage and lilac. There’s a certain stillness to the air that’s utterly breathtaking.

“See? I told you it looked way nicer out here.”

“Fine. I can admit you were right this time.” Damian turns his head to search for Orion, Rigel, Betelgeuse. It’s easier to find them here, within the cold night air of the Kent farm and away from the glow of the Gotham skylines, but there’s a brightness next to him that drowns them out. “But I’ve seen the stars before. Every night. You didn’t need to take me to see them.”

“Nah, I did,” Jon says, pointing up between them and tracing out the constellations. “You can see everything from here. I used to try and count them all every night. I’d sit out here and just… go from one, to two, to three, all the way up until I couldn’t count anymore.”

Damian feels a soft smile form on his face at the thought. Jon sitting here like they are now, listening to the crickets chirp and watching the fireflies burst in a glowing halo around him. A calmness Damian is only beginning to allow himself. “How benign,” he finally says. Just like Jon is, he supposes. Kind, and soft, and brighter than any other star in Damian’s own sky of shadow.

“I didn’t really want to move to the big city.” Jon puts his arm back down, letting it fall on the grass. Unconsciously, Damian searches for his warmth, and finds Jon's palm to tangle his own together with. There’s a hint of red to Jon’s cheeks when he continues. “But I’m a little glad I did.”

“Why, because you didn’t have to do farm chores anymore?”

“No, because we got to hang out more. I _liked_ taking care of the animals. And you have Bat-Cow, so you’re one to talk.” Jon nudges Damian in the ribs with their linked hands, trying to tamp down a growing blush. Damian squirms away, cackling, and the sound makes Jon’s eyes sparkle. “Did you just laugh?”

Of course. Of course he did. His barriers are too low around Jon now. With nothing left between them, not even distance, Damian can only sputter, “No, I—”

“You definitely did, Dami. Come on, just admit you’re happy for once.”

And Jon’s right. Because he is happy, here with Jon, staring up at the night sky, two stars passing their light to each other. It was Jon that lit his flame and melted his inhibitions. It was Jon that gave him a brightness and a shine in his life when Damian was certain none existed.

It was Jon, with his smile and kind words and tenacity and _hope_ , that made Damian fall in love.

“I…” Damian starts. The words seem less blocked in his mind, like a mental barricade he’s had for so long is crumbling under the weight of Jon’s existence. “I am. Happy, here with you.”

If there was any possibility that Jon could glow brighter than he already does, Damian may have found a way to make it happen. He ends up twisting on the ground and into Damian’s side, curling into him as though they were born to be together like this: together beneath the stars, holding on to each other like they’ve become the only beings in the universe. “You know, it’s kinda weird, but I am, too.”

Jon’s voice is muffled by Damian’s shirt, but he thinks he understands it. He’s starting to understand a lot more lately, all because of Jon.

“Hey, Jon.”

“Mm?” Jon murmurs, peering up at him with a half-lidded gaze. Their hands are still together; Damian doesn’t know why his palm has started to grow clammy, but that look probably has something to do with it. Jon’s eyes are drooping further, somehow. Damian has no idea how he’d fall asleep here and wake up perfectly rested, but it _is_ Jon, and Jon has always surprised him. “What’s up, Dami?”

“No, never mind. It’s nothing.” Damian hesitates for a moment, but he drops Jon’s hand. Jon makes a confused noise at the lack of contact, until Damian turns on his side and finds Jon’s hand again with his left arm, pulling his head closer with his right. Jon’s unwieldy curls are gentle beneath his touch; the hum that he tickles into Damian’s side makes Damian’s heart lift incrementally. Jon probably misses it, nestled into Damian’s side as he is, but Damian lets a fond smile blossom on his face. “Are you going to fall asleep here?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Jon mumbles, yawning. “You’re comfy.”

“Go to sleep, dummy,” Damian whispers back, resting his chin against the top of Jon’s head. He can’t help feeling sleepy himself; it’s too serene like this, the chirp of crickets, the lights hanging above them, the person he’s fallen so terribly, terribly deeply for curled up with him.

Damian feels his pulse begin to slow, a sanctuary of sunshine within the blanket of night. Jon’s heartbeat is a steady constant to keep him afloat in a moment that feels too dreamlike to be real. His consciousness starts to slip from him, and he leaves his safety in Jon’s hands, in Jon’s loving warmth. The stars of Orion twinkle back at him from Jon’s eyes, and he drifts off, enveloped by a shower of light from a galaxy all their own.


End file.
